f is a cautionary one. michelle kramer: if it's able to help young women avoid something like this happening to themselves or make them realize, you know, it doesn't make you stupid, it doesn't mean that your life is destroyed, then maybe it all happened for a reason. and you are stronger than ever before. i definitely feel like i'm a resilient and strong person now, yes. [wind howling] you ever contemplating committing the perfect murder? and he said, yes. the key element to that is making sure that someone is caught. once they have somebody, they'll stop looking, and that's how you can get away.

craig melvin: a cold-blooded killing, a victim worth millions, and all kinds of conflicting clues. i've never had a case this complicated before. craig melvin: police following multiple leads until-- dean carriger: we asked, who's that? and he says, he's my neighbor who lives two floors below. craig melvin: a suspect under arrest. having someone you love just taken away. sorry. craig melvin: case closed-- or was it? could there be something else or someone else they missed? there were so many parts of the puzzle that were not adding up. craig melvin: someone had pulled the trigger, but had someone else pulled the strings? lisa mccammon: he was the type of guy that could take bad luck and turn it into a fortune. [intro music] hello, and welcome to "dateline."

they were neighbors living large in their salt lake city loft building-- a sophisticated crowd who enjoyed mixing business with pleasure. then, a murder revealed a phony in their midst-- a man they claimed repaid their trust with loss. was he, they wondered, the mastermind behind this cold-blooded killing, or did investigators need to be looking in another direction? here's keith morrison with "suspicion." keith morrison (voiceover): 7:00 am, november 15th, 2007. dawn in salt lake city, utah. he pulled into the restaurant parking lot, turned off his engine, sky beginning to brighten, sun not quite up. and then, there they were-- the voices, the terror, the nightmare beginning. lee carlson: i immediately ducked down in my car after the first shot was fired. i laid there thinking, ok, well, this is how it's going to end for me. - you're going to be dead? yeah. operator: 911, what is your emergency?

caller: somebody just shot a man. he's lying dead inside of the village inn. [music playing] keith morrison (voiceover): it stands in stark contrast to much of the rest of salt lake city, this old chocolate factory, this grand stage for our story. it was converted to loft apartments in those boom years before the bust. and the style of living and location drew a distinct crowd, outliers of a sort, iconoclasts in this famously mormon city. i loved this building. it was fabulous. keith morrison (voiceover): bianca pearman-brooks, for example, born into privilege in england, raised in ireland and africa-- she came here in august 2006 to visit a friend. bianca pearman-brooks: i came on holiday, and i met christopher, and we just hit off. keith morrison (voiceover): christopher wright, a real-estate developer, lived in the same loft building as bianca's friend. there was a party in the building. bianca was invited. in one night, you know him? yeah.

yeah. keith morrison (voiceover): to anyone watching, it was an obvious perfect match. friends and loft neighbors dave and lisa mccammon. lisa mccammon: he is so lovely, and she's kind of quirky. and i think she brought that playfulness out in chris. he was a positive guy before; he was ecstatic after. keith morrison (voiceover): so it was true, blind, passionate love that drove bianca to give up everything she had known, her whole life back in england, and moved here to utah to be with chris, where six months after that first moment they laid eyes on each other, they were married. bianca pearman-brooks: he made me feel very safe. keith morrison (voiceover): her protector and incurable romantic. this is a man who cries always through romantic movies like "the notebook." keith morrison (voiceover): it didn't take long for bianca to become firmly entrenched in loft living. bianca pearman-brooks: so the lofts were full of incredibly crazy people. academics, airline pilots, physicians, documentary filmmaker, olympic speed skater, mortgage broker,

socialites. keith morrison (voiceover): john fife, an advertising copywriter, was one of the first to buy the building. john fife: this building was a fantastic collection of interesting people. keith morrison (voiceover): none more so than perhaps the building's most gregarious and outsized personality, david novak. bianca pearman-brooks: he was so nice, and entertaining, and funny, and charming. lisa mccammon: it's impossible not to be charmed by david. i adore the man. dave: we were, i would say, basically best friends here in utah. keith morrison (voiceover): david's huge personality fit his apparently oversized professional accomplishments-- investor, restaurateur, owner of an extremely unusual consulting firm whose sole specialty was preparing wealthy clients for, of all things, prison. he was hired to help put their affairs in order before they went to prison, help educate the family what was going to happen, try to get the best sentencing possible for him. keith morrison (voiceover): that business, as david confessed to his loft friends,

grew out of personal experience. he himself was a felon-- served a year in federal prison for mail fraud. lisa mccammon: but he was the type of guy that could take bad luck and turn it into a fortune. keith morrison (voiceover): so most everyone in the building seemed to be living large in those good ol' pre-meltdown days when into the mix was introduced a new ingredient-- a businessman with real money. it was novak, said bianca, who did the introductions. bianca pearman-brooks: christopher had an office about two or three blocks from here, and there was a starbucks he always went to. and he went over there, and novak was there with ken dolezsar, and he introduced them. keith morrison (voiceover): ken dolezsar lived in a wealthy enclave just south of salt lake city, a very nice guy by all accounts, with a big extended family and money to invest-- truckloads of money. he'd already loaned novak $1.85 million to make a movie about his prison consulting business. and soon, ken and chris began working on a real-estate deal.

they spoke sometimes, and they had contacts back and forth. but i really-- i'm a girl. keith morrison: and you weren't interested? no. it was so dull. fall came to salt lake city. keith morrison (voiceover): leaves yellowed and fell. the economic crisis scudded toward them like a low, black cloud. as the businessmen-- ken dolezsar chris wright, and david novak continued their interconnected hustle and flow. but the roiling storm bearing down on them was loaded not with economic ruin but something else entirely. bianca pearman-brooks: i couldn't believe it. and no one-- there was-- everyone was there, all of our friends, and we just sat there. we couldn't move. it was like-- it was just unbelievable. craig melvin: "dateline" returns after the break. [music playing]

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keith morrison (voiceover): so now, it was that morning-- learn more and try for free at freestylelibre.us 7:00 am, november 15th, 2007. operator: 911, what is the address of your emergency? keith morrison (voiceover): dean carriger, then a detective with the sandy police department was on the freeway when his radio came to life. dean carriger: it wasn't for a few minutes that i heard there was an actual shooting, at which time-- that's my department. that's where i need to come get busy. keith morrison (voiceover): he got the address, the parking lot of the village inn restaurant just south of salt lake city in a town called sandy, his town.

it was a very violent scene. the victim was shot five times. the fifth shot was done while the shooter was standing over top of him and shot him in the face. yeah. ooh. the shooter was making sure he was dead before he left. keith morrison (voiceover): cold, methodical, like a professional hit. and yet, amazingly, somebody was sitting in a car maybe six feet away, watched the whole thing-- ordinary guy minding his own business now eyewitness to a brutal slaying. the man's name was lee carlson. lee carlson: right hand came up, reached inside of his pocket, out came a gun and pointed at the other man right in the face and pulled the trigger. keith morrison (voiceover): here at the police station, lee told how he ducked out of sight after that first shot but not before he got a glimpse of the shooter. as far as i can remember, he had a longer nose.

i can't tell eye color, but his eyes seemed to be more bulgy. detective: when you just see him in a glimpse-- yeah. detective: i know we're kinda asking a lot. keith morrison (voiceover): but what stood out most was his hair-- long, tied in a ponytail-- looked almost out of place, like a wing. and i looked at that more than his face. keith morrison (voiceover): before the shooting, said lee, he heard the men's voices, sounded eastern european, maybe slavic. police believed both men came here in the victim's car, which the shooter then used to flee the scene. and as for the victim, well, you've heard the name by now-- ken dolezsar, the extremely wealthy local investor. my daughter called me, just bawling. she told me, ken's been shot, and he's dead. wow. keith morrison (voiceover): matt beaudry considered ken dolezsar to be one of his closest friends. they founded and coached a college hockey team together. the ken matt knew wasn't just a wealthy businessman. he was deeply concerned for the boys on the team. i watched him pull out his wallet, slip money in the kids' pockets because he

heard the kids needed tuition money, couldn't buy their books. keith morrison (voiceover): and now, his friend, their friend was dead. and some of those kids just broke down and bawled. keith morrison (voiceover): at the loft building in downtown salt lake, the news rocketed from floor to floor. after all, a couple of residents, including bianca's husband, were doing business with dolezsar. i know it sounds like rubbernecking at a car crash, but it was kind of like, wow! someone you know has been murdered. keith morrison (voiceover): who could possibly want a man as nice and generous as ken dolezsar dead? but then, it's almost a truism of police work that where money goes, trouble often follows-- the. more money, the bigger the trouble-- and, in this case, an extra dollop. the dead man's vast fortune, hundreds of millions, wasn't really his, strictly speaking. he married into the bulk of it. the fortune came from a company his wife founded with her former husband. the divorce had been nasty, family loyalties bitterly divided, and some family members weren't the least bit happy.

but ken was making investment decisions. keith morrison (voiceover): detective carriger contacted ken's brother and broke the news. he dropped down to his knees, and he said it's that [bleep] darrick. keith morrison (voiceover): a moment of unguarded grief and rage, and thus a possible suspect-- darrick mower, ken's adult stepson. dean carriger: it was apparent that there was difficulties between those two. keith morrison (voiceover): but trouble in the family didn't stop with derek. there seemed to be a riff. keith morrison (voiceover): but not between dee and ken. there seemed to be a genuine love story. but now, a grieving dee told detectives she was as baffled about the murder as they were. she was not able to provide us any information as to who he was meeting that day or anything about his day. keith morrison (voiceover): and despite all that friction, the infighting over money and control, dee's family produced not a single viable suspect, not even ken's stepson. darrick had an alibi at the time of the murder.

keith morrison (voiceover): but those initial interviews were not entirely in vain. a clue emerged from ken's assistant. the night before the murder, she said, ken got a call on his cell. she knew that he had set up a meeting to meet with whoever he was talking to at 7:00 am on the 15th. keith morrison (voiceover): the day and time at which ken dolezsar was shot to death-- was the caller also the killer? if so, they now had his voice; because earlier, that caller left this phone message. caller: hey, ken, this is robert. i talked to dave. he said we should get together pretty soon here. keith morrison (voiceover): detectives traced the prepaid cell phone from which the call came and went to the store where someone bought it. dean carriger: this phone was purchased with cash, with no identifying information provided to the carrier. keith morrison (voiceover): but the family did have a suggestion for the detectives-- something they actually agreed on. he should look carefully at a man named david novak.

yes, that david novak. remember novak's consulting business for prison-bound executives? guess what? dee mower was incarcerated in federal prison. keith morrison (voiceover): tax fraud. ken's wealthy wife dee was david novak's client. that's why ken dolezsar knew david novak. and something about that consultant and wannabe movie producer made ken's relatives suspicious, so detectives drove over to the loft where they spoke with mr. novak. dean carriger: he was soft-spoken. and a bright man. he came across as very intelligent, yes. keith morrison (voiceover): answered all of their questions but didn't seem to be of much help. and then, as detective carriger was preparing to leave, he tried one more question. that prepaid cell phone, the one someone used to invite ken to the fatal meeting-- the store had surveillance video of a man buying that very phone. ken's family said they didn't recognize him, but would novak?

carriger showed him the photo. dean carriger: we asked, who's that? and he says, he's my neighbor. he lives two floors below. keith morrison (voiceover): and just like that, a big piece of the puzzle plopped in the place. but fair warning-- as you'll see, puzzle pieces and some residents of this downtown loft might not be quite what they seem. craig melvin: coming up! it's a massive sense of disbelief. craig melvin: the investigation takes as many turns as one of the building's hallways. i've never had a case this complicated before. craig melvin: when "dateline" continues.

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keith morrison (voiceover): it was almost a month after the murder of ken dolezsar, his friends still coming to terms with it. and i just think, what if? all the fun we could have had if he hadn't been taken. keith morrison (voiceover): until now, the investigation seemed to be going nowhere. and then, as detective carriger was about to leave david novak's apartment in the downtown loft building, he showed novak the surveillance photo from that cell phone store. dean carriger: he looked at it and said, that's chris wright. he said, he's my neighbor. he lives two floors below. keith morrison (voiceover): chris wright, his good friend and husband of the irrepressible bianca. this is definitely somebody we want to talk to. keith morrison (voiceover): carriger arrived unannounced at chris wright's office not far from the loft building. and almost before he could ask a question,

he said, chris launched into a story about ken dolezsar-- claimed the man was so paranoid, he wanted chris to buy a prepaid cell phone so they could communicate in complete privacy. to detective carriger, the story seemed a little too ready or rehearsed. almost as if he was covering-- trying to account for things that we knew. i see. keith morrison (voiceover): odd. then, as interview went on, he said, chris's voice began to sound familiar-- the voicemail that police believed helped lure ken to his death. caller: hey, ken, this is robert. to me, that was chris's voice on that phone. keith morrison (voiceover): the detectives pulled out a search warrant. bianca was home when the police arrived. bianca pearman-brooks: it's surreal. you have-- their like roving gangs of toddlers who are ripping everything apart. they turn your sofas upside down and take out the lining. they took apart my toaster. i mean, it's-- they take everything apart. keith morrison (voiceover): a ballistics report

told police the murder weapon was a 9 millimeter handgun. chris was an avid collector of guns. and among them, police found an empty case for a springfield armory 9 millimeter handgun, and what do you know? the gun that went with it was missing. chris wright was arrested and charged with the murder of ken dolezsar. bianca pearman-brooks: there was a massive sense of disbelief. he was being completely taken out of the blue and for no reason. keith morrison (voiceover): the loving husband who cried his way through romantic comedies, a cold-blooded assassin? impossible. it quite literally wasn't possible, said bianca, for chris to have killed ken dolezsar that morning. he had an alibi. he was in the loft. i was there. keith morrison (voiceover): he was home in bed with her. he was a foot from me. there's no room for doubt. keith morrison (voiceover): this surely had to be a colossal misunderstanding. bianca sought support from her neighbors, including david novak, her only friend with intimate knowledge

of the legal system. he comforted you? he was brilliant, yeah. he would ask me how everything was going, and what was happening with christopher, and whether our attorneys were doing the job they were supposed to. keith morrison (voiceover): she told him everything, she said. and he assured her the mistake would soon be rectified. she believed him. i don't want to be married to a murderer. i would not fool myself if there was a second's doubt in my mind. he did not do this. keith morrison (voiceover): but some of her friends in the loft weren't so sure. i started to feel sorry for her, thinking, oh my gosh, you poor, naive girl. you know, you're going to be crushed by this. keith morrison (voiceover): at the sandy utah justice center, the case that police turned over to josh player, then, the assistant district attorney, seemed very clear. the evidence was exceptionally strong in this case. it all kept pointing in the direction of mr wright. keith morrison (voiceover): there was the surveillance photo, the voice message which was placed from a spot near the loft, according to cell tower

tracking, and the eyewitness. he'd been shown a photo lineup up with chris in it. and now, he remembered some details a little differently than he had that first traumatic day. like, chris's blue eyes in the photo, he said, jarred something in his mind. i was 80% to 90% certain that this was the man that i saw. keith morrison (voiceover): then, he found a picture of chris on the web and tried photoshopping in a few details, like a wig. i looked at that and said, yeah, that looks almost exactly like what i saw. keith morrison (voiceover): reinforcing a memory. but was the memory accurate? as for the rest of the case, the investigation wasn't over yet-- the story just begun. the first puzzle pieces placed where they seemed to fit, but-- i've never had a case this complicated before. keith morrison (voiceover): oh, even more than complicated, as those friends in the loft began to believe-- something darker than that.

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hi, i'm richard lui with a news update. the u.s. army based in georgia put on lockdown after deadly shooting. it happened at a housing area at the fort eisenhower army installation. one was killed and the shooter is in custody. has bigger merited nancy pelosi undergoing hip surgery after falling during a congressional trip to luxembourg. a spokesperson said she is recovering well. for now, back to dateline. i'm craig melvin. chris wright was under arrest, charged with the murder of his business associate, ken dolezsar. and the investigation would reveal a damning new discovery-- evidence linking chris directly to the crime scene. but for his friends and family, the pieces of this

complex puzzle just didn't fit. was it possible chris had been set up to take the fall for a crime he didn't commit? once again, here's keith morrison with "suspicion." keith morrison (voiceover): strange times around the loft building in downtown salt lake. so shocking that one of their own, chris wright, had been arrested and charged with killing wealthy businessman ken dolezsar. all of the evidence we obtained led up to chris wright being the trigger man. keith morrison (voiceover): in the suv, ken drove to his fatal morning meeting, for example. the killer used that vehicle to flee the scene. and when the cops found it and scoured the interior, they got a hit-- chris's dna. we had a dna result from the inside door handle of the suv. keith morrison (voiceover): it was a tiny sample, not a perfect one, but it seemed to put chris in ken dolezsar's car, driver side, which certainly helped the case.

but it wasn't quite airtight-- not yet. the murder weapon had not been found. yes, they found an empty gun case in chris and bianca's apartment, but nothing to connect the case to the murder. and just about then-- the sergeant for the district attorney's office just happened to call me and ask, hey, did you ever look in that gun case? was there shell casing or anything in that gun case? keith morrison (voiceover): turns out the gun's manufacturer includes a test-fired shell casing with each gun it sells. so the detective went to the evidence locker, he said-- retrieved the gun case. looked inside and there was a casing. big moment. big moment. keith morrison (voiceover): big moment because the ballistics test of that shell casing? it was a match. the shell casing was fired from the same gun as the shell casings recovered at the scene where ken dolezsar was killed. keith morrison (voiceover): chris wright's missing gun must

have been the murder weapon. now, the case looked very strong indeed. though chris's wife bianca certainly didn't think so. bianca pearman-brooks: i know for certain, categorically, that christopher didn't do it. keith morrison (voiceover): in fact, the police and prosecutor had it all wrong, she insisted. and it wasn't just that chris had an alibi for the morning of the murder. no, she said, it was the whole case. it was all wrong. chris's dna in the car, for example? of course it was there, she said. chris admitted he'd been in the car but weeks before the murder. but get this-- the steering wheel, especially, and all the car was covered with dna and fingerprints that did not match chris. nor did bianca buy lee carlson's story. he said that the guy had an eastern european accent. christopher is american born and bred. he also said that he had only seen a glimpse of his face. again, i only saw a glimpse of it. keith morrison (voiceover): in fact, said bianca, the eyewitness account more

properly eliminated chris as a suspect. all agreed, remember, that ken and his killer arrived at the crime scene together in the same car. but think about it, said bianca-- i just looked at him going, oh, is that dude wearing a wig? what? you know? keith morrison (voiceover): would chris wear a wig to a meeting with someone who already knew him, had met him, particularly someone as cautious as ken? bianca pearman-brooks: you have a deeply paranoid man, ken dolezsar, who is doing business with christopher and has met him. you don't think that if christopher got into the car all wigged up that he would think that that was slightly strange? keith morrison (voiceover): and if the eyewitness was right, the killer shot with his right hand. christopher is staggeringly left-handed. keith morrison (voiceover): staggeringly left-handed. then, there was the business of eye color. now, long after the event, the eyewitness was saying the killer had brilliant blue eyes. but right after the murder-- i can't tell eye color, but eyes seemed to be more bulgy. he just got more and more refined in each interview

with the police. brilliant blue eyes. brilliant-- yes, which, of course, you can see brilliant nordic blue eyes from the side. keith morrison (voiceover): but what about chris's suspiciously missing handgun-- the one linked to the crime? bianca says she is certain chris did not use it to kill ken dolezsar that morning-- impossible, she said, because he no longer had it. that gun, i lost back in the summer. i lost? yeah. you just lost a gun? i have a horrible habit of losing stuff. keith morrison (voiceover): before chris ever met ken dolezsar, she took some visiting british friends on a shooting excursion to the great salt lake. they finished at sunset. bianca pearman-brooks: and i put down this little gun, the springfield on the ground, right next to the bag. and i went to help somebody with something else. keith morrison (voiceover): then, she got distracted, she said-- packed up the rest of the gear, went home,

and neither she nor chris ever saw that gun again. bianca's proof the gun was missing-- this video made just over a day later by her british visitors who wanted to document their uniquely american experience. in their video, there was no sign of a springfield armory 9 millimeter. i lost stuff constantly, and it was a bone of contention between christopher and i. keith morrison (voiceover): and while the prosecution scoffed at bianca's lost gun story, her loft friends did not. if you knew sweet bianca, she accidentally threw her gorgeous wedding ring away. we had to dig it out of the garbage. i was standing there. she can be an absent-minded dingbat. keith morrison (voiceover): but remember the day police searched the loft? they took apart my toaster. keith morrison (voiceover): she was focused like a laser that day, said bianca, watching intently, she said, as an officer looked in the empty 9 millimeter gun case.

i was sitting beside her. keith morrison (voiceover): no test-fired shell casing, she said. i don't mean to sound cynical, but i knew it wasn't there. keith morrison (voiceover): only possible conclusion, said bianca? it was her accusation the sandy police must have planted the shell casing in order to link chris's missing gun to the crime scene. keith morrison: one thing it would be hard for people to accept is the idea that this detective would do something as unethical as plant evidence. it was not there. i know that. keith morrison (voiceover): the sandy police department categorically denied the accusation. but as those loft friends heard more of chris wright's side of the story from bianca, they became convinced he was innocent. there were so many parts of the puzzle that were not adding up. keith morrison (voiceover): unless, they reasoned-- unless someone they knew very well wanted chris to take the fall--

the dark suspicion wafted through the corridors of that old chocolate factory. perhaps the police, they said, arrested the wrong neighbor. he had the perfect patsy in christopher. the neighbors start comparing notes and realized someone in their circle was not who he seemed. coming up-- we were astounded. and i remember saying to him, what? craig melvin: when "dateline" continues. why just give a gift, when you can give a gift with meaning? shutterfly, make something that means something. enjoy 40% off your order with code gifts40. order now for holiday delivery. type 2 diabetes? discover the ozempic® tri-zone. i got the power of 3. i lowered my a1c, cv risk, and lost some weight. in studies, the majority of people reached an a1c under 7

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keith morrison (voiceover): among residents ask your eczema specialist of the downtown salt lake loft, an idea took root and grew around the story of the murder of ken dolezsar. it was planted just weeks after chris was arrested. loft residents dave and lisa mccammon were having dinner with their best friends, the novaks. dave mccammon: he announced, we're moving. and we were astounded. i remember saying to him, what? you've put all this money into your loft. you've got all this investment here. why are you leaving? he said, it's just time to go. keith morrison (voiceover): he claimed to be their great friend-- sociable, gregarious, larger than life. then, said his neighbors, once chris was arrested, he seemed nervous. and now, he was gone. and so they wondered, was david novak running from something? the law friends began re-examining all those stories

david told them over the years, particularly those about his criminal past. john fife: we started comparing notes and stories, and it became clear. wow, david told me a different version of that. they'd been lying, to put it rather bluntly. certainly not full truths. keith morrison (voiceover): the brief prison term for mail fraud novak told them he'd served? turned out there was more to that story-- a lot more. novak had confessed to a con that played out like a cinematic thriller. he used a private flying club he owned to run an insurance scam. then, as it caught up to him, he attempted to escape by faking his own death-- ditched his airplane in puget sound. john fife: he faked his death in order to avoid an insurance audit. that was not a crime of passion. that was a crime of calculation. keith morrison (voiceover): or so the loft friends believed. and if that was true, what might he have done here in salt lake? their suspicion only grew when the friends found out

novak left town without mentioning it was he who fingered chris in that surveillance photo. keith morrison: did he ever tell you, i identified christopher as the guy who-- no, no keith morrison (voiceover): and of course, that prepaid cell phone was the very clue that led police to chris-- a phone which chris bought, said bianca, after novak assured him. novak has said that this guy routinely used these throwaway phones. keith morrison (voiceover): what's more, said bianca, chris could not have left that voicemail-- caller: hey, ken-- keith morrison (voiceover): --because by the time of the murder, she says, he'd given the phone away. he gave it to novak. keith morrison: and novak gave it to dolezsar. yes. yes. i mean, as far as we know-- but it's novak, so we don't know anything. keith morrison (voiceover): and now, a theory about motive drifted from loft to loft. hadn't novak bored with almost $2 million from ken? the friends said they watched him spend lavishly on high living and never saw evidence of that movie the loan was supposed to pay for. but really, was their old friend capable of orchestrating

murder and pinning it on chris? dave mccammon: there's one person that bragged about knowing russian mafia. but how hard would it be to find somebody that looked like chris? and he introduced chris, from the very beginning, with that in mind of setting chris up. i mean, i know it sounds, like, just a really dumb movie. but if you have ever met novak, the man has a byzantine mind. keith morrison (voiceover): she recalled all those supportive chats she had with novak after chris's arrest. it turned out he was probably fishing for information. keith morrison (voiceover): it reminded friend john fife of a conversation with novak one night after they dined together. john posed a question. he said, mostly in jest, of course-- just hypothetical-- i said, david, have you ever contemplated committing the perfect murder? and he said, yes. the key element to that is making sure that someone is caught and charged with the crime.

once they have somebody, they'll stop looking, and that's how you can really get away. keith morrison (voiceover): and now, novak had taken off. and even though their questions didn't amount to hard evidence, of course, chris's defense attorneys wondered, as they prepared for the trial, why the police had so readily dismissed novak as a suspect-- dismissed him and a few other quite puzzling discoveries, like, for example, the one about ken's widow, dee. remember, she was in prison at the time of his murder. when she first talked to police, she told them she had no idea her husband had a meeting the morning of his murder-- no clue who he was meeting with. turns out, she was not telling the truth. [phone ringing] ken: hello? operator: you have a call from an inmate. ken: hello? dee: hi, honey. keith morrison (voiceover): it's standard procedure for prisons to record inmates' phone calls. this is ken talking to his wife dee the night before his murder.

ken: i'm actually meeting with my friend tomorrow at 7:00 am, go figure that out. dee: ooh, i love it. ken: yeah, exactly. so tomorrow morning, at 7:00 am-- so tommorow night, i should know more. keith morrison (voiceover): police confronted dee in prison-- recorded the interview. in it, she claimed the stress of losing her husband caused her to forget about that phone call. and then, she dropped a bombshell. she said she knew who the friend was ken was supposed to meet, and it wasn't chris wright. she never heard of him before. dee: david novak. that's who i believe he was meeting. keith morrison (voiceover): chris's defenders wanted to know why the police didn't seem to follow up on that or probe more deeply into all that tension in dee mower's family. odd, all of it-- the feeling to them that something was missing, that the case against chris simply didn't hold together. so as chris's trial finally got underway, bianca felt her husband was as good as home.

bianca pearman-brooks: i was just like, brilliant, you know? we know, they go away, they do this, and they come back, and i get my husband back. craig melvin: coming up. chris wright makes his case to "dateline." chris wright: the people who are going to watch your show-- i urge them to make their own decision. craig melvin: when "dateline" continues. ooo! our car's value went up! [music playing] maybe we should track all our cars' value on carvana? all of them? all of them. we need more trackers! i'll track the van! gotcha! is that my belt? ah, parts of it, yeah. oh! i'm getting a value update! do you see which one is going off? how's it trackin'? good! got some dips, some rises. now what? "hold?" sold. did we get a little carried away? noooo. room for more! track your car's value on carvana today. if you're living with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis or active psoriatic arthritis

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keith morrison (voiceover): chris wright's murder trial began in april 2010. it had been more than two years since ken dolezsar was shot dead in the village inn parking lot in sandy, utah. chris's defense did more than challenge the evidence. he had made a provocative claim that chris wright was the victim of a conspiracy, a conspiracy hatched right here in the loft by former neighbor david novak to protect the real killer by setting up chris to take the fall. a conspiracy the prosecution brushed off as nonsense. you would have to believe for it not to be chris wright that it was somebody that looked like chris wright, sounded like chris wright, had the phone bought by chris wright, used the gun bought by chris wright, had chris wright's dna, and had a connection to ken dolezsar to find that it wasn't chris wright. keith morrison (voiceover): but all of that, claimed chris's defense, the clever novak was quite capable of setting up.

he had it nailed from start to finish. like a chess game somehow, 20 moves ahead. yep. keith morrison (voiceover): but that didn't explain lee carlson, the good samaritan eyewitness who sat in court and pointed his finger at chris wright. i am very certain and very clear of what i saw. and i may not have told it initially right off the bat under the full stress of what i saw. but i know what i saw and i know who i saw. keith morrison (voiceover): except there is one person who said he is most certainly sure lee carlson is mistaken-- chris wright himself. chris wright (on phone): i will answer any question you want to ask. keith morrison (voiceover): chris was jailed right after his arrest. he wanted to make his case to "dateline" in the flesh, but authorities wouldn't allow it, so we talked to him on the phone. so you say you didn't do it. chris wright (on phone): i absolutely did not do it. keith morrison (voiceover): we discussed all the allegations at length. he offered detailed refutations and some allegations

of his own. we're asked to believe that the police were incompetent and definitely crooked, that david novak is crooked, and the only person who was innocent as the driven snow is you. chris wright (on phone): it's not my fingerprints. it doesn't match my description. i had an alibi. i have no motive. and there's clearly a person who's pointing the finger at me, who got $2 million. this is just too cloak-and-dagger for a jury. chris wright (on phone): i understand how difficult it is to believe, but the alternative is that i just simply got up one day and decided to go shoot some poor person in a disguise. keith morrison (voiceover): chris wanted to talk about that voicemail, the one that helped lure ken to his death, the voicemail detective carriger was sure was left by chris, though no voice analyst ever studied it. chris wright (on phone): i mean, people who are going to watch your show are going to listen to my voice and are going to listen to that recording. and i urge them to make their own decision. yeah, let's listen to it right now, all right?

chris wright (on phone): absolutely, go right ahead. so that is new, huh? chris wright (on phone): that is absolutely not me. keith morrison (voiceover): the jury got the case april 29, 2010, a jury that certainly heard about, but never saw the mysterious david novak. so would they buy the prosecutor's evidence or bianca's explanations, her alibi for chris? i was concerned because i had been told that, you know, sometimes it can be a crapshoot was the phrase that was used. keith morrison (voiceover): the jury deliberated for 11 hours. and the verdict-- guilty. i can't even begin to explain. it's like the bottom falls out of your world. and they wouldn't even let me hug him. yeah.

sorry. just give me a sec. it's all right. take your time. crying is not acceptable. and why is that? because i'm english. keith morrison (voiceover): but for ken's friends, at least matt beaudry, the verdict was vindication. matt beaudry: he looks like a smug killer. and then a jury of his peers listened to all the evidence and with that weighty choice, decided that he was. i'm satisfied with that. keith morrison (voiceover): chris wright was sentenced to 15 years to life. and david novak has not been charged with or accused by the police of anything, though whether or not authorities want to talk to him is less clear. keith morrison: do you know where he is? i don't know where he is, no. are your people trying to track him down? well, part of the rules i'm constrained by

is i don't speak about ongoing investigations or the existence of ongoing investigations. keith morrison (voiceover): but if law enforcement was mum about david novak, ken dolezsar's widow was not. dee mower filed a lawsuit against novak on grounds including wrongful death, conspiracy, breach of contract, and fraud. her suit alleged a third theory that novak paid chris wright $25,000 to kill ken dolezsar. novak didn't answer the suit, nor attend the proceeding. so in november 2011, a judge granted a default judgment on the breach of contract and fraud claims and awarded mower $7 million. in august 2012, the court granted her a motion to dismiss the wrongful death and conspiracy claims so that a final judgment could be entered in the case. back in the loft, some imagined the worst about their former friend and neighbor. what would you advise him to do if you could talk to him?

talk to your guys. tell the story. if you have nothing to hide-- refute me. tell me why what i'm saying is not correct. we used to be friends. i'm more than willing to hear what you have to say, david. keith morrison (voiceover): so where is he? turned out david novak wasn't so hard to find after all. in fact, here he is, near his last known post-loft address, in an upscale neighborhood in a certain northwestern city. it didn't look like a man on the run, just a guy getting a coffee with his wife at starbucks, of course. he just isn't answering calls or emails from his former loft friends. and he didn't want to talk to "dateline," telling us over the phone he was not involved in ken's murder, has been cleared by the police, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar and liable to be sued. bring it on, he said. so is chris wright a liar? bianca an unwitting, or perhaps willing, accomplice?

some people are surprised that you stayed because you could go. i wouldn't leave a dog in christopher's situation. and i will work until my dying day to make sure that he is-- that his name is cleared, isn't-- yeah. wait for him as long as you have to. yep, no problem. keith morrison (voiceover): and out in suburban sandy, utah, the case still resonates around the shiny new courthouse, where ada josh players struggled with his emotions a bit, as he told us he is sure he did not send an innocent man to prison, but rather, achieved justice for everyone. i was glad for the family of the victim. you take this stuff to heart, don't you? i do. i do. keith morrison (voiceover): and while they stand

on opposite sides of that chasm between innocence and guilt, there is no dispute about the man whose life was lost. ken dolezsar was a man who loved a woman just as chris loved bianca, who loved hockey, loved helping kids, and tried to do right by all that money, which is mostly still around, though he is not. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. [music playing] he's just my first love. narrator: the guy who disappeared. except in her case, he really disappeared. woman: he's going to call me on a couple days. he never called. narrator: his family, in agony. i wrote letters to oprah winfrey, to "america's most wanted."